Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition Hands-On Preview

Hell, it works if you're playing it alone, either on score runs or just playing it as a pure shooter. In my hands-on, I fired a grenade bolo launcher, a revolver that fires explosive flares, a sniper rifle with steerable bullets, and even the 'bouncer', a massive gun that fires cannonballs that explode on impact and with an alternate fire that makes them explode nearly forever. Hell, this is a game where even the assault rifle has a secondary fire mode that lets you fire the entire magazine at once, burning the flesh from your assailant's body.

What Bulletstorm does well then, is fun. It's a fun game; it looks nice, it has some decent ideas, and if you liked the original it's likely you'll enjoy this version too. If you've never played before, which is likely to be the majority of people reading this - it's not available on digital store-fronts and has never been included in any Humble Bundles - it's good to hold that at the forefront of your mind. I'd even say that if you were sick of the monotonous yearly entries of that shooter that everyone likes, you'll find this a breath of fresh air.



It's no secret — and I'm told by Gearbox staff at the preview event several times — that People Can Fly is using this re-release to test the waters, to sound out a possible Bulletstorm sequel, but it's a remarkably polished effort, with Gearbox and People Can Fly coming together to add several new game modes like the Overkill Campaign Mode, which functions as a New Game+, letting players plough through the campaign again with all of their weapons present and correct, and for pre-ordering customers, there's the chance to play the entire game through from the perspective of gaming icon Duke Nukem.

This is one particularly sour note about the experience for me. I have nothing against Duke Nukem; yes, he's a misogynist dinosaur and nothing but a series of one-liners wrapped up in a red vest and a silly haircut, but he's little more than self-parody at this stage, and if we can all agree to forget about Duke Nukem Forever, his inclusion here isn't entirely unwelcome - he has his own lines, and they've got Jon St. John back to voice him. He's a little slice of gaming history, and a nice bonus for players of the remastered Bulletstorm.



What annoys me is that this is a pre-order bonus. I'd hope by now we've already established that pre-orders are, by and large, quite bad. You shouldn't be encouraging people to buy your games before they've managed to read a review or at least watch some game footage on YouTube from critical sources, and to encourage that with cosmetic items or a bonus mission is reprehensible but somewhat understandable. To offer an entirely new character with his own script and fresh voice lines, however, is completely inexcusable, and while they're probably not going to step away from this, I'd be firmly in favour of them offering the Duke up as a free download for everyone, but if that doesn't happen, if they withhold this from everyone except those who coughed up the cash ahead of launch? I think it's only fair they should take a healthy chunk of criticism for it.

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, then. All the magic of the original Bulletstorm with a fresh lick of paint and a cynical pre-order bonus.